Free redeeming cupid 01 - struck by eros by jenn windrow

you hurt?” His voice soft, like he meant what he said.
    Nothing more than a trick. A slick trick to convince me he wasn’t evil.
    I pulled my hands out of his grasp and tried to push him down the steps. “Then why did you come here? Why did you force me to come clean?” I wiped away the tears. “If you thought forcing me to tell Len about us would send me running into your arms, you were wrong.”
    Grayson flinched at my hurled hatefulness. “Because you don’t belong with him, and he doesn’t belong with you. Noel, this is for the best.”
    His words didn’t register. They didn’t sneak in to calm me, and they certainly didn’t make me feel better. All they did was cause that volcano of hatred and anger to bubble over the surface.
    “Best for who? You? Because it’s not for me.” I shoved at his chest, propelling him toward the stairs. “Go. Just go. I don’t want you here.”
    He removed my hands and pinned them down to my side, stopping any attempt to shove him out of my life and off my steps. “I’m not leaving. If I’m not here, you’ll find a way to patch things up, beg him to stay.”
    Twisting my hands out of his, I stepped back. “Damn right I will. Now. Go.” I tried pushing him again, but his feet stayed glued to the porch.
    I pointed to his Audi. “Get in your car, and get the hell out of here.” I crossed my arms over my chest, and turned my back on him, letting him know my lips were zipped. Conversation over. I had nothing else to say.
    After a few moments of tense silence, his car keys rattled, and he placed his hand on the sore spot on my head, a soft touch. “Don’t do anything stupid.” He pushed off the railing and walked to the steps. “Sweet dreams, Noel.” His parting words before he bounced down the steps in his polished dress shoes, got in his car, and drove away.
    The Audi disappeared down the winding road, taking the biggest problem in my life with it. My trembling hands touched the chilly wood railing, and I stood listening to the water roll over the rocks in my tiny front yard creek, but even the comfort that sound usually brought didn’t even begin to squash the hurt.
    Garnering courage, I squeezed my eyes shut for a split second, pushed off the railing, then wandered into the living room, and sank into the deep, well-worn seats of the brown-leather sofa. My head flopped back and rested on a plaid throw Len had given me two Christmas’ ago because I had a bad habit of falling asleep during movies. Footsteps pounded overhead, drawers opened and slammed shut. Probably clearing out his things from our bedroom, getting ready to clear himself out of my life. My heart hoped he was just pissed off and slamming his way into our bed, but my brain knew it was worse. Much worse.
    Where would he go? He had given up his apartment two years ago and moved in with me. The house and everything in it belonged to me, my inheritance when my parents passed away in a car wreck four years ago.
    Len stormed down the stairs, a suitcase in one hand—my brain was right—a duffle bag hanging off his shoulder. He marched through the foyer, not once glancing in my direction. I couldn’t let him leave without saying something, but what?
    “Len, wait.” I caught up to him before he walked over the threshold.
    But he didn’t stop. Didn’t turn around. Didn’t look my way. Didn’t bother to hear my promise that I would continue to fight for him. Instead he gave me a one-finger salute and yelled, “Rot in hell.”
    Four swear words in one night. I think I might have destroyed my fiancé.
    * * * *
    Pounding at the door. Loud. Insistent. Annoying. My head rolled off the pillow and my body followed. I tried standing, but something had happened to my legs. Oh yeah, the tequila.
    The room spun like I had spent all night on a tilt-a-whirl, and my stomach rocked-and-rolled to the beat of the annoying eighty’s music they always played at those parking lot carnivals. On my hand and knees, I crawled